by Steve Wingate

I believe that me and my wife are the perfect match-- we have the same sense of humor, and we ummm…. ummmm….well, we do have the same last name. We are radically different in one aspect, however. Well, okay, far more than one aspect, but I'm only going to talk about one of them… our tastes in movies.

She can sit for hours and hours watching some dreadfully long movie where everyone is speaking in British or French accents, wearing corsets and powdered wigs and jouncing along in carriages fanning themselves. That's right, guys….. she likes (gasp) period films! She almost refuses to watch any movie unless it is at least four hours long and set in the nineteenth (or earlier) century. Not only are they long, they are very hard to follow. I tried to watch one movie with her, and I missed an entire plot turn during a sneeze.

Me: Ah-ah-choo! Hey! Who's that guy?

My wife: That's the earl of Dumfounder. He's going to marry Deirdre.

Me: Oh…. Who's Deirdre?

My wife: She's Drisella's long lost half-sister. Weren't you paying attention?

Me: All I did was sneeze!

My wife: (Sarcastically) Yeah! That's why you missed it.

I prefer my movies to be much simpler. In order for me to watch a movie, it must have one or more of the following:

• Car chases

• Explosions

• Scantily clad women

• Humorous bodily noises

This of course limits me pretty much to action movies and comedies. She appreciates comedies, of course, but she turns her nose up at action movies, deeming them "plotless". Yes, she is a bit of a movie snob, I guess. But this is to be expected, because the books she reads are not much different. I've often argued with her that the whole point of plopping your fanny down in front of the TV is to take a break from the book you're reading, therefore it should be something simple, not something that induces you to nod off during the opening credits. When I sit down in front of the TV or the silver screen, I want to be mindlessly entertained by special effects and gratuitous sex and violence. I make no pretense of fooling myself into believing that high culture exists in the cinema.

Yet, we have both had minor victories in the ongoing war of vanguard cinema versus brainless b-movies. I once convinced her to sit down and watch "True Lies", which she now ranks as one of her favorites, and I once sat through "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", which I now rank as…. er, well, I rank it as one of the movies I have seen. Funny thing is, neither one of us has given up on converting the other. I still try to get her to sit down with me and our son to watch "Gone in Sixty Seconds" or "Cannonball Run." She will usually oblige me for two or three minutes, one corner of her mouth twitching, until she remembers that the roast in the oven is going to burn if she doesn't take it out in two hours or so and excuses herself. My daughter, who will watch almost anything as long as it comes on The Disney Channel or Nickelodeon, doesn't care for either one of our cinematic tastes. She'll walk into the living room while my son and I are watching TV and exclaim: "Not that movie again!", then stalk sulkily from the room, intentionally flicking her ponytail from side to side. It does make me feel a little better to know that she does the same thing to my wife during a six-hour period film. She'll sneer and say, "When does this go off, Momma? Tomorrow?" I have no idea where she gets that sarcasm from.

My wife never stops trying to convert me to her taste in movies. She often will decide to watch a movie after the kids go to bed and ask me if I want to join her. I'll ask her what she's going to watch, hoping it will be something we both agree on, like "Blazing Saddles" or "The Wedding Singer". But no, it's always something like "Victorian Ladies Sitting in Parlors" or "Petticoat Memoirs: Diary of a Young Girl". (I made those up… could 'ya tell?)

My Wife: Honey, I'm going to watch a movie. You wanna watch it with me?

Me: (stifling a silent groan) What are you going to watch?

My Wife: Pride and Prejudice.

Me: Are there any car chases in it?

My Wife: (trying to humor me without rolling her eyes) No, but there's a guy riding really fast on a horse. (She's using the same voice and method of persuasion she uses on my son when it's time for him to get a haircut.)

Me: Oh. Any horse chases?

My Wife: No. I think a carriage gets blown up, though.

My Wife: I can't remember…. Somewhere on the third tape, I think.

Me: I'm outa here.

My Wife: Honey, wait! There's lots of women with cleavage! You like cleavage! And tight bodices!

I'd like to end by proposing a film idea to Hollywood, something that will bring my wife and I together. We need a sci-fi action drama thriller period film. That's right… imagine a car chase going through a time-space continuum or something like that. Yeah... then you see this Ferrari driven by Arnold Schwarzenegger passing a carriage with Pamela Anderson (in a really tight bodice) inside. She jumps out just before the carriage explodes and pops out of her bodice when she lands, then the Ferrari spins into a 180 and stops to pick her up. Her escape plan has worked! She no longer has to marry the Duke of Flatchester as her parents decreed when she was but five years old and seven years away from her first breast-enhancement surgery. Pamela reaches behind her seat, pulls out an AK-47 and opens fire on the pursuing horsemen. They fall like bricks, and some of the horses even explode. She checks her watch and urges Arnold to go faster, because they're going to unfashionably late for tea with old Mrs. Wooldridge if they don't hurry. Arnold shifts it into sixth gear and the Italian supercar roars forward and….. Okay, I better stop. I'm starting to want to see this movie.

Oh, and Hollywood? It can't be any longer than an hour and half, and Schwarzenegger is the only one allowed to have an accent.